美国国家公共电台 NPR For The Men #MeToo Has Toppled, Redemption Will Take More Than An Apology

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Dozens of powerful men, including two here at NPR, have lost their jobs and reputations in the cultural reckoning that is the #MeToo movement. There's clearly tremendous momentum¹ behind it, so where does it go from here? And what's going to happen to these men? NPR's Elizabeth Blair set out to explore whether they have a shot at redemption. And a quick note that her report includes details of domestic violence and other material that may not be suitable for all listeners.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE²: First, some free advice from Los Angeles attorney Andrew Brettler.

ANDREW BRETTLER: You know, the best advice is obviously to not get yourself in a situation where you could be accused of sexual misconduct.

BLAIR: Until recently, it seems plenty of people got away with ignoring that advice.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Roughly 24 hours later Matt Lauer, anchor of NBC's "Today" show for 20 years, was fired.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Two weeks after Alex Kozinski, a prominent federal appeals court judge, stepped down amid wide-ranging allegations of sexual harassment³.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: There have been more disturbing reports regarding Mark Halperin's treatment of younger female co-workers.

BLAIR: MSNBC, CBS, NBC - these stories are just about everywhere. For those who can afford it, the path to redemption can be a legal process. Brettler represents several men accused of sexual misconduct.

BRETTLER: Those allegations these days are just as bad and damaging as a conviction.

BLAIR: Still, Brettler says, for people who lose their jobs sometimes the best response is to lay low.

BRETTLER: Sometimes the best defense⁴ is to not do anything. It is to accept the punishment or whatever decision it is that the company made and stay quiet and better yourself as a person, make whatever apologies that need to be made privately⁵.

BLAIR: Like Andrew Brettler, Hanna Stotland spends a lot of time helping⁶ people accused of sexual misconduct.

HANNA STOTLAND: Some of them have done something wrong. Some of them I'll never know.

BLAIR: Stotland sees a lot of parallels between her job and what's happening in the public sphere. As an admissions counselor⁷, Stotland works with college students. Some of her clients are men who've either been expelled or left universities because of sexual misconduct allegations. She helps them apply to new schools.

STOTLAND: A big part of what I do is help them decide what is - what's the right framework for them to talk about it? This is a narrative⁸ of their crisis and recovery.

BLAIR: And it is not easy.

STOTLAND: There's a few reasons why sexual misconduct allegations are particularly heavy as a drag on an application. The first is that they're scary. Nobody wants to bring a predator⁹ into their community. A second reason is that there's a perception that this sort of misconduct as compared to any other kind of misconduct has to do with something fundamentally unchangeably wrong with you. And whether that's true or not, it's something that everybody who's accused of this particular set of misbehavior has to cope with.

BLAIR: Stotland says for her students, it's about finding a university with sympathetic ears. Sometimes that takes years. But so far, the students she's worked with have been able to graduate.

STOTLAND: So it's quite an odyssey¹⁰. But if you get everything else right, you can come back from this.

BLAIR: As for these high-profile cases playing out in the media, Stotland says there are some lessons her students can learn. Take comedian¹¹ Louis C.K. He admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent, as reported here by ABC.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: In his lengthy¹² statement, Louis C.K. says that he is remorseful¹³. The power I had over these women is that they admired me, and I wielded¹⁴ that power irresponsibly, which...

STOTLAND: The most important right thing he said was the allegations are true. That is the single most important thing that you can say. If they're true, you need to say that they're true.

BLAIR: But Stotland acknowledges an apology is only the beginning. It was after Louis C.K. confessed that companies severed¹⁵ ties with him.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Netflix has already canceled his standup special while HBO is removing his projects from their on-demand services.

ATTIYA KHAN: What's happening is men are basically being fired.

BLAIR: Attiya Khan is a filmmaker based in Toronto. She also spent years helping victims of domestic abuse.

KHAN: Part of my fear is that we're getting rid of somebody, but then where do they go? And that person becomes another workplace's problem, another person's problem.

BLAIR: And not part of a solution to end sexual misconduct, says Kahn. She herself is a survivor¹⁶ of domestic violence. When she was a teenager, her boyfriend at the time was physically¹⁷ abusive.

KHAN: I had been coping with the trauma¹⁸ from his abuse for over 20 years. And so I thought that maybe it was possible that he still carried, you know, some of the weight of what he did to me. And I really wanted to hear about that. But I also - more importantly, I really wanted the opportunity to tell him exactly what he did to me in detail.

BLAIR: Kahn asked her ex-boyfriend if he'd be willing to sit down with her and a therapist and let her film their conversations. He agreed. As Khan tells her story in excruciating detail to the therapist, her abuser, who she refers to only as Steve, sits next to her.

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KHAN: I remember being dragged to the bed and, you know, hit more...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How were you being hit?

KHAN: Like, punched.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Where were you being punched?

KHAN: In the face.

BLAIR: Conversations like these were a critical part of Khan's healing process.

KHAN: To have him listen to me was almost the most important thing for me. And it was part of him being accountable and taking responsibility. It was so satisfying.

BLAIR: Why?

KHAN: To have the person who hurt you sit there and listen to you and not blame you for it and admit to what they did and to remember some of the abuse - even though Steve didn't remember a lot of it in our first conversations, he started to remember.

BLAIR: This process is called restorative justice. With mediation¹⁹, victims and offenders²⁰ come together to repair the harm that's been done. It's something writer Stephanie Cassatly thinks about a lot. In 1980, Cassatly's mother was murdered while she was working as a cashier at a convenience store in New Orleans. Her mother's killer²¹ spent the rest of his life at Angola prison. Cassatly says for 20 years, she was angry and wanted revenge.

STEPHANIE CASSATLY: The thought of forgiveness to me felt like I was sort of giving up a limb and then maybe I might regret it later, or that I was letting him off the hook.

BLAIR: Until she started looking into restorative justice and changed her definition of forgiveness.

CASSATLY: My working definition basically for forgiveness is that it no longer wishes ill or seeks revenge on the person who hurt us, and that it basically untethers us from them and enables us to have a different future from the past.

BLAIR: When it comes to the #MeToo movement, Cassatly sees restorative justice as a possible way forward.

CASSATLY: I think we're in the bomb throwing stage of it still. We're not even sure where this is going. And I think it's going to take some time for us to get any resolution. And so what I'm realizing about a lot of these women is that they have to get their power back.

BLAIR: Stephanie Cassatly and Attiya Khan both say that is going to take a very long time.

KHAN: A lot of men who have harmed women are coming forward very quickly after it's becoming public that they've hurt someone and they're saying sorry. It needs to be more than that. And you need to make sure that the people who have been harmed want your apology. And you need to ask them, like, what else is it that you need from me? How can I help you heal after I've wronged you? That's the part that's missing.

BLAIR: The offenders called out by the #MeToo movement might not be there yet. It takes courage to be held accountable. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.

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1 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

4 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

5 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

6 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

7 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

8 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

9 predator   

n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者

参考例句：

• The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
• Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴，它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

10 odyssey   

n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险

参考例句：

• The march to Travnik was the final stretch of a 16-hour odyssey.去特拉夫尼克的这段路是长达16小时艰险旅行的最后一程。
• His odyssey of passion, friendship,love,and revenge was now finished.他的热情、友谊、爱情和复仇的漫长历程，到此结束了。

11 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

12 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。

13 remorseful   

adj.悔恨的

参考例句：

• He represented to the court that the accused was very remorseful.他代被告向法庭陈情说被告十分懊悔。
• The minister well knew--subtle,but remorseful hypocrite that he was!牧师深知这一切——他是一个多么难以捉摸又懊悔不迭的伪君子啊！

14 wielded   

手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响）

参考例句：

• The bad eggs wielded power, while the good people were oppressed. 坏人当道，好人受气
• He was nominally the leader, but others actually wielded the power. 名义上他是领导者，但实际上是别人掌握实权。

15 severed   

v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂

参考例句：

• The doctor said I'd severed a vessel in my leg. 医生说我割断了腿上的一根血管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We have severed diplomatic relations with that country. 我们与那个国家断绝了外交关系。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

17 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

18 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

19 mediation   

n.调解

参考例句：

• The dispute was settled by mediation of the third country. 这场争端通过第三国的斡旋而得以解决。
• The dispute was settled by mediation. 经调解使争端得以解决。

20 offenders   

n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物）

参考例句：

• Long prison sentences can be a very effective deterrent for offenders. 判处长期徒刑可对违法者起到强有力的威慑作用。
• Purposeful work is an important part of the regime for young offenders. 使从事有意义的劳动是管理少年犯的重要方法。

21 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。